Poster Auction 2014

For 2014 LS/FF celebrated the art of storytelling and the power of narrative in surf filmmaking. For all great works have one thing in common – they take the viewer on a journey, convey a message, tell a tale. The best of those finely turned phrases and iconic lines stay with us, go on to become sound bites in our every day living – cultural reference points shared with like minds.

This year we approached some of the UK’s most exciting creatives and tasked them with crafting a work that celebrates the power of words – choosing a phrase or line from a film that resonates with them. Each work of art has is presented as a one off A2 print that was exhibited in the gallery for the duration of LS/FF and are now available to buy. Simply email us HERE with your best offer and the print will go to the highest sealed bid. Remember these one of pieces of art are being auctioned for great causes, with the proceeds being split between our charity Wateraid and environmental partner #2minutebeachclean.

“YOU KNOW THERE’S NO WAY I CAN HANDLE A CAGE” – Point Break by Leo Stockley

“As a child growing up in St Agnes a new surf film meant a rowdy social gathering with a projector in the village hall – the only surfing on television was the ‘Old Spice’ ad. Point Break was the pinnacle of the new main stream culture of surfing and we all went to the cinema to see it. The film is rich with cheesy quotes and this one was mature cheddar for me.”

Leo Stockley – I’m the Senior Designer at Design79 and have worked in the design industry since leaving Falmouth School of Art and Design in the early nineties. One of my first postings was with the team at ORCA Publications working on Carve & 360, before joining the in-house team at Animal. I have a keen interest in printing and have always enjoyed the illustrative side of design.

“I JUST SURF ‘CAUSE IT’S GOOD TO GO OUT AND RIDE WITH YOUR FRIENDS” Big Wednesday by Gemma Chalmers

I think this is a great quote – A jaded Matt Johnson is hitting rock bottom but he still knows deep down what surfing is really about for him. Big Wednesday gathered a cult following after being a commercial flop on release in 1978, and it is my favourite dramatised surf film ever! Capturing an era of pure retro style, great surfing, hysterically foolish humour and one-liners that are up there with the best!

Gemma is a graphic designer / artist / print-maker. Based in Cornwall, she designs and edits the free online surfing publication – The Slideshow magazine in her spare time. Aimed at those who don’t get caught up in the commercial hype, and can relate to everyday surfing stories. She graduated in 2003 with a graphic design degree, worked for Damien Hirst for 3 years before upping sticks to live in a caravan on the Cornish coast. She lived and worked in Raglan, New Zealand for a little while, then returned to Cornwall to begin The Slideshow mag, and produce artwork for the magazine and handmade prints to sell locally and in her online shop.

“BACK HOME BEING YOUNG IS JUST SOMETHING YOU DID UNTIL YOU GREW UP. HERE IT’S EVERYTHING.” Big Wednesday by Ed Syder.

Ed’s ‘Big Wednesday’ poster captures his favourite land-locked scene from the film (the “crashers!” party) and was drawn in pen and ink, then coloured in Photoshop.

Ed Syder grew up in Cornwall, where he spent long hot summers at Crantock and skateboarding at Mt. Hawke. He studied Fine Art in Liverpool, cut his illustration teeth in Manchester and London, and now lives in Sheffield. His first graphic novel ‘My Skateboard Life’ was published in 2011 by Blank Slate Books.

From the stakeout scene were Pappas asks Utah to get him two meatball sandwiches – that’s two. He’s reading the Calvin and Hobbes cartoon in the paper and giggling to himself. Dorning captures the whole essence of the scene perfectly in his unique style, in ink and brush, then scanned.

Give Chris Dorning a pen, a paintbrush, an aerosol or some pieces of old material and amazing things happen. His work is art, but it’s also performance and inclusivity that draws in the onlooker. There’s a diversity and scope that crosses genres and reflects many influences – from the urban to the oceanic. He works on canvas, walls, material – and he is the man behind the MakeMake brand.

From the height of cheese to cherished classic, North Shore has been taken to surfers hearts like no other Hollywood flop – and the character of Turtle gives us a plethora of repeatable phrases. Richard has taken his trademark mindblowing oils and added a ‘Michael Mann’ neon splash and 80’s font that perfectly encapsulates the North Shore spirit.

Artist, designer, publisher of fine tomes, Richard Bull’s work always amazes, from his mind bending oils, to his beautiful books. A graduate of the Chelsea School of Art and founder of Yacht Associates, Richard is an award winning designer who has been prolific in the field of art direction for the music industry. His oils include the series ‘Waves I Seem to Recall’ and ‘Waves I Will Never Know’.

“THERE WAS ONCE A MAN WHO BECAME UNSTUCK IN THE WORLD.” Castles in the Sky by Richard Braham

“This film for me is so well put together and each time I watch it I feel like packing a small bag of essentials, grabbing a board and going off exploring alternate places & cultures, just as I guess Taylor Steele had first envisioned. The quote ‘there was once a man who became unstuck in the world’ resonates with me as it is often how I feel a lot of the time, being someone who is comfortable in my own company and space, I often feel the need to disconnect myself from people and surroundings sometimes in order to get things done and find my place. This quote is constantly repeated throughout the film and always accommodated by an alternate sentence that follows it. ‘There was once a man who became unstuck in the world – he realised that he was not his car, he realised that he was not his job, he was not his phone, his desk or his shoes. Like a boat cut from its anchor, he’d begin to drift. There was once a man who became unstuck in the world – he took the wind for a map, he took the sky for a clock, and he set off with no destination. He was never lost. ‘”

“YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN HERE YESTERDAY.” The Endless Summer by Ben Cook.

“This is a famous line from the classic Bruce Brown film, ‘The Endless Summer’. In surfing terminology the phrase refers to a surfers’ missed opportunity for catching good waves, as the surf is invariably said to have been better the day before. This is sometimes true, but is often wistful nostalgia, and an analogy for life in general, as we tend to assume that things were always better in the past.”

Ben Cook makes artworks inspired by the surfer’s gaze; the particular way a surfer views the landscape. His work alludes to matters outside of surfing, and shows how surfing and surf culture relate to the ‘real’ world of politics, society, culture and the environment.

“I KNEW YOU WOULDN’T MISS THE FIFTY YEAR STORM…” Point Break by The Lab

The culmination of the ultimate search – the chase across the world’s best surf breaks to a destination that Bodie couldn’t resist – the fifty year storm, Bells Beach.

Here at The Lab we create things that we love. Music, print, design, art, other limited edition items, and…coffee, that we want to share with the world. We are interested in every detail of what we produce. From ideas behind the products you see, to the packaging it reaches you in.

“THAT’S JUST THE LEMON NEXT TO THE PIE.” Big Wednesday by Nick Radford

‘That’s just the lemon next to the pie’ is such a classic line from the character Bear in the all time classic Big Wednesday. Nick’s simple 2 colour typographic treatment illustrates Bear’s words, aways quoted on any building swell!

Nick Radford is an illustrator, musician, dad(ford), record collector, surfer, throwback chump. Nick is on the books of top illustration agency, Folio; producing work for The Guardian, LG, Google, Cadbury and Vodafone, among others. After a long mislead musical career of going nowhere slowly, in recent years he has finally released material on Freestyle and Ubiquity Records, as Frootful and The Mighty Sceptres respectively.

“I ASKED IF HE HAD SEEN THE GREAT JETS FLY ACROSS THE SKY. HE SAID HE’D SEEN THE SMALLEST BIRD LEARNING HOW TO FLY.” Morning of the Earth by Steve Wintercroft

Steve has represented this quote as an intricate, hand made, 3d paper bird mounted on a wooden plinth. “Waves represent an extreme, direct and visual representation of the constant change and fluidity of everything around us. Surf photography captures this beautiful, transient, movement as a static image, at a fixed point in time. These intense and fleeting moments, preserved in a surf magazine are reinvented as the feathers of a bird. Take time to appreciate and protect the brief and incredible things that surround us everyday.”

“CRESTING THE RIDGE, THEY HALT IN AWE.” Cradle of Storms by Zander Grinfeld

Words have the ability to capture the imagination as much as any image, this poster forms the basis of the festival identitiy for 2014 with hand drawn typography over an image of the ocean, torn to mimic the cold sea.

Zander Grinfeld is the head honcho at Venn Creative, a Cornish based award-winning multidisciplinary studio who having been working with LS/FF and Approaching Lines for a number of years now. When not indulging his passion for design he can be found treading his longboard somewhere along the coastline of Kernow.